Parliamentary Committees

Joint Committee on End of Life Choices

The Hon. A. PICCOLO (Light) (11:27): I move:

That the report of the committee be noted.

I would like to speak briefly on this report, which was tabled recently in this chamber. This is the report of the Joint Committee on End of Life Choices of which I was a member. It was a joint select committee of both chambers, which we have just been talking about.

This committee was given the task to explore current medical practices in relation to people who are terminally ill and in terms of helping people who have a terminal illness. A key term of reference was to look at the Victorian model of voluntary euthanasia in that state and whether that model would be an appropriate model for South Australia to adopt if it wanted to adopt some form of voluntary euthanasia. The committee was also asked to inquire into any other matter.

If my recollection is correct, when this matter last came before this parliament in this chamber the house divided, in the sense that we were evenly divided. The matter to commence some sort of scheme for voluntary euthanasia was defeated with a casting vote of the then Speaker of the chamber. It will not surprise you, Mr Speaker, when I advise the house that the committee could not come to a conclusion on whether or not the Victorian model is an appropriate model.

That said, some really good work was undertaken by the committee, and this report actually reflects further investigations and evidence taken by the committee, which adds to the body of knowledge and advances it a bit further. Hopefully, it will be a useful resource for any future debate on this matter.

The committee did identify a number of themes and issues relating to the matter of voluntary euthanasia. Some key themes emerged through the committee. For example, palliative care is a critical part of our health and wellbeing system, and the committee believes it requires additional funding to make sure that the availability of palliative care is both consistent and equally accessible to people right across the state.

There was evidence given to the committee to support the view that palliative care in itself is not available to all our citizens equally right across the state, and that is of concern given that it limits people's choices when they may have a terminal illness. Also, any palliative care system should be designed to make sure that it is accessible, particularly to people in regional areas, Aboriginal people and to those for whom English is not a first language, given a whole range of cultural issues associated with voluntary euthanasia.

The committee also found that a key focus of palliative care should be on providing dignity for those people approaching their end of life. There were also some findings regarding advance care directives and whether the community fully understood their existence. There was some evidence provided to suggest that some people in the community still do not understand the availability of advance care directives. For those who do, sometimes they do not fully understand what they mean.

Also, an advance care directive in one state does not apply to another state. One of the findings of the committee was that we should look at the advance care directive legislation to make sure it is uniform across the country. Also, it should pick up, for example, if somebody were to make an advance care directive in Victoria that it should be recognised in this state and vice-versa, rather than when people move around and do not then get a new care directive that that one is not valid and they are unaware of that. So there are some practical things we could do to improve our current system of palliative care and also our current system of advance care directives.

Some of the things we also need to look at are in terms of things associated with the use of voluntary euthanasia. We had, as you can imagine, a divergence of opinions and views and evidence given to the committee on this issue. There is always a difficulty in assessing what weight you put on a particular piece of evidence and opinion against others. I think this is also a very important position. People of different positions on voluntary euthanasia can be quite sincere and genuine in holding these positions and, in any future debate we have on euthanasia, we should remember that.

The Hon. J.A.W. Gardner: Hear, hear!

The Hon. A. PICCOLO: Yes. Thank you, minister. This is also true on a whole range of social issues as well. I think on all issues we should always try to be civil in the way we debate them. Particularly around issues of life and death, and issues which are quite strongly held by people, we need to be respectful in those debates and have debates which shine a light on issues rather than just turn up the heat.

The committee found that there are a number of different schemes already in place. One is in Victoria and there has been one more recently in Western Australia. The committee did not recommend one scheme above the other but said it would have to use our report and also the evidence we collected for any future debate in this place.

I am aware that a bill has already been moved or is about to be moved in the other place to give effect to introducing a model similar to the Victorian model for voluntary euthanasia in this state, so I will not labour the point because I am sure this matter will be debated and what is in this report will be debated at length during that bill.

I would also like to thank the members of the committee, who, even though we had differences of opinion on a range of issues, worked very well in a bipartisan way to make sure that the evidence before us was properly considered.

I acknowledge the Hon. Kyam Maher MLC, the Chairperson of the committee. I think the Hon. Mr Maher did a very good job in being very fair and respectful in chairing the committee. The member for Waite was a member of the committee until 4 February, the member for Finniss was a member of the committee and is now a minister, the Hon. Dennis Hood MLC was a member, Mr Murray was a member from 6 February, I was a member and the Hon. Mr Parnell MLC was a member.

I do have to say, though, that it was a bit disconcerting that it was an all-male committee. I must confess that was disconcerting for me. I did raise it, but, for whatever reason, the two places could not find room for a woman on the committee. That was a bit of an issue but, irrespective, I think that we worked well together. I also would like to thank the committee secretary and Clerk Assistant, Ms Leslie Guy; Mr Anthony Beasley, parliamentary officer, who supported the committee extremely well; and the research officer, Dr Robinson, who, as best she could, put together a report on the evidence that we collected.

With those comments, I would like to ask that the chamber note the report. As I said earlier, given that it is a bill before parliament, I am sure that we will have some more extensive discussions about voluntary euthanasia in this state.

Debate adjourned on motion of Dr Harvey.